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556 points greenie_beans | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.444s | source
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legitster ◴[] No.42466978[source]
This article is fascinating. But what's on display here is less of a nefarious plan from Spotify to replace famous Katy Perry with AI - instead we get to see something much more specific: a behind-the-scenes of how those endless chill/lo-fi/ambient playlists get created.

Which is something I've always wondered! How does the Lofi Girl channel on Youtube always have so much new music from artists I have never heard from?

The answer is surprising: real people and real instruments! (At least at the time of writing). Third-party stock music ("muzak") companies hiring underemployed jazz musicians to crank out a few dozen derivative songs every day to hack the algorithm.

> “Honestly, for most of this stuff, I just write out charts while lying on my back on the couch,” he explained. “And then once we have a critical mass, they organize a session and we play them. And it’s usually just like, one take, one take, one take, one take. You knock out like fifteen in an hour or two.” With the jazz musician’s particular group, the session typically includes a pianist, a bassist, and a drummer. An engineer from the studio will be there, and usually someone from the PFC partner company will come along, too—acting as a producer, giving light feedback, at times inching the musicians in a more playlist-friendly direction.”

I think there's an easy and obvious thing we can do - stop listening to playlists! Seek out named jazz artists. Listen to your local jazz station. Go to jazz shows.

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1. insane_dreamer ◴[] No.42473351[source]
> less of a nefarious plan from Spotify to replace famous Katy Perry with AI

actually, it's the same nefarious plan, just that AI wasn't yet up to the task. Now it is, and replacing those fake artists, who are still human beings as far as we know, with AI (and the same fake resumes) is the logical next step.

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2. motorest ◴[] No.42479079[source]
> Now it is, and replacing those fake artists (...)

They aren't even artists. They release content bought from third-parties, and at most their role is limited to market it. These "artists" are at best brands that are carefully managed and curated.

3. yojo ◴[] No.42480131[source]
To your point, the article even mentions that since the Muzak labels own the master on all these tracks, they are free to use them however they see fit. Which in this case probably means training their AI entirely on their own cleanly licensed music.

They are probably already doing it, slipping in a few AI-generated songs in with the gig-produced music to see how it’s performing.